BIBLE GAINS IN '40

Evening Star, Issue 23833, 13 March 1941, Page 2

BIBLE GAINS IN '4O

Increase in the circulation of the Bible in many parts of the world 'is reported in a survey of the year 1940 published recently in the International Review of Missions.

Religious seeds have been sown during tho past year, it says, which may ripen into a rich harvest when the war has become a distant memory, The American Bible Society reports a marked rise in sales in Japan. The British and Foreign Bible Society, in 1939, had a circulation in India of 1.338,000—123.000 more than the previous year. The society reports large sales increases in Central and Southeastern Europe and a record circulation in South America. It now has editions of the Scriptures in 745 different languages. 13 new ones being added in 1939.

The life of the Evangelical Churches in France, the survey says, is still vigorous in spite of recent events. The Paris Faculty of Protestant Theology has re-opened this winter. In Latvia, while many Christians have, under pressure, abandoned the church, others have shown increased devotion. In Estonia, where religions instruction has been prohibited, the Lutheran Church continues to bo vigorous. In Spain instruction in the catechism has been made obligatory, and there the Roman Catholic Church has experienced gain. But in Poland, both under Nazi and Soviet occupation religious orders have been dissolved, religions teaching is forbidden, and Homan Catholic. Orthodox. and Protestant clergy have been maltreated and sent to concentration camps.